Part 1 (13
December 2001 - 16 May 2003); Part 2 (18 May
2003 - 30 June 2003); Part 3 (1 July 2003 - 2
December 2003);
Part 4 (3 December 2003 - 29
January 2004); Part 5 (3 February 2004 - 17
April 2004); Part 6 (16 May 2004 - August
2004); Part 7 (12 December 2004 - June
2005)

J, on
Sunday afternoon, I read that
Charles
Murray article to which you refer. Thanks
for citing it here. When Murray writes, "So the possibility arises that
Aristotle, the same man who did so much to bring science to that edge, also
supplied the tool that distracted his successors"... that's like blaming the
father for the sins of the sons (or daughters). The problem was not in
Aristotle's logic, but in the Scholastics sclerotic applications of logic to
matters of faith, making the logical and the dialectical the "handmaidens" of
religion. What the Renaissance thinkers reacted against was not Aristotle, per
se, but this dogmatic wedding of the Aristotelian and the religious. Ironically,
however, it was the application of Aristotelian logic to religious matters—via
Aquinas and others—that
paved the way for the secularization of the human mind. And the religious
thinkers of the Middle Ages ~knew~ it and struggled
mightily, at first, against it. (I discuss this in Chapter 2 of my book,
TOTAL FREEDOM: TOWARD A DIALECTICAL LIBERTARIANISM).

As for the "Newtonian"-inspired
belief that man could remake the world from scratch: this too was not a failure
of reason or science. It was a failure of ~rationalism~. And the application of
the physical sciences to human action was a failure of ~scientism~. Not a
failure of reason or science. So, yes, J, you are 1000% correct about the
Cartesian perversions at work here. And yes, reason gets "the full blame for the
failures of its nominal adherents"---just the way capitalism has gotten the
blame for the failures of statism. All the more reason, indeed, to "man the
barricades and stick to the fundamentals."

Now, onto C's comments. C admits
that past US foreign policy may have "had *some* level of influence on the Al-Qaeda
network," but he "fail[s] to see how, when considering the ultimate religious
nature of the Al-Qaeda network itself and its goals, Bin Laden's sources of
revenue, and Al-Qaeda's consistent 'low tech' methods of attack, how they would
be 'a lot less lethal' if we could turn back time and correct US foreign policy
'mistakes.'" C adds that "[i]t is tempting to assign short-sighted and flawed US
governmental actions the same level of direct influence on the goals of Al-Qaeda
as one would on, say, the Columbian government, or other tyrannies that have
been given genesis and/or the necessary tools of survival directly or indirectly
by foolish US policies. 'Anti-drug' policies in conjunction with the near global
criminalization of certain substances, *creates* the black-market of violence,
destruction, and death. The link is direct and nearly irrefutable. However, such
a clear relationship does not exist between Al-Qaeda and the US government's
actions."

I don't agree.

Let me make a more direct analogy
with another war. Does anyone honestly believe that World War II would have
happened ~anyway~ without World War I and the events that transpired in its
aftermath?

Ayn Rand often said that World War
I—the war "to make the world safe for democracy"—led to the birth of Fascist
Italy, Nazi Germany, and Soviet Russia, and that World War II led to the
surrender of three-quarters of a billion people into communist slavery. These
were "unintended consequences" writ large, on a scale that was previously
unimaginable.

With Rand, I would agree that ideas,
especially philosophical ideas, are the driving force of history. If human
beings accept a virulent strain of philosophy, it is no less lethal than being
exposed to a deadly strain of virus. But there are all sorts of inoculations and
vaccines that one can take to prevent a virus. And there are all sorts of things
that one can do, once a virus has hit, to shorten its course, making certain,
for instance, that it doesn't spread.

Thus, if one looks ~strictly~ and
~only~ at the ~philosophy~ of Nazism, outside of any historical context, one
could certainly conclude that this was a militant, racist, anti-Semitic creed
that ~had~ to lead, by its very nature, to death and destruction. But just
because the logical implementation of an idea ~can~ lead to death and
destruction does not mean that it ~must~. When Rand endorsed the view that ideas
have efficacy, she didn't endorse the view of philosophic determinism: that
ideas ~must~ result in certain outcomes, ~regardless~ of context or
circumstance. There is nothing inevitable or inexorable about it. Nazism, the
flame, needed ~oxygen~ to flourish. The loss of Germany in World War I, the
Treaty of Versailles, and the Great Depression were all its sources of oxygen.

In a sense, therefore, I would agree
with Cwhen he says: "Al-Qaeda is no different."
Indeed. Everything about Islamic fundamentalism reeks of death and destruction.
But there is nothing ~inexorable~ about this. Such ideas do not exist or
flourish in a historical vacuum. They can only become lethal in the context of a
certain constellation of historical conditions. ~That~ is why Rand emphasized
the political conditions of tribalism's rebirth (which I mentioned in
an earlier post). ~That~ is why I've emphasized
that so much of what is happening today is a product of the collision of
fundamentalism with a particularly short-sighted, "pragmatic," interventionist
US foreign policy, which created the conditions for the empowerment of
autocrats, despots, and fundamentalists. You cannot abstract virulent ideologies
from the ~conditions~ that allow them to rear their ugly heads. If such things
are deadly flames, past US foreign interventions have been their oxygen. (And,
furthermore, you cannot abstract US foreign policies from the ~system~ of
interventionism that Rand characterized as the "New Fascism," since such
policies emerge from, and perpetuate, that system.)

So too, we can't abstract the
current situation from the history of US foreign policy: from US enrichment of
the Saudis—who export fanatical Wahhabism to the rest of the world; from US
involvement with the Shah of Iran—which led to the rise of the Khomeini
theocracy; from US encouragement of Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war—which bolstered
the Hussein regime; from US encouragement of the mujahideen in Afghanistan—which
empowered the Taliban.

Granted: We can play the game of
"what if" forever. So, let me play that game, briefly, by quoting from Thomas
Fleming's book THE ILLUSION OF VICTORY: AMERICA IN WORLD WAR I (Basic Books,
2003). Fleming is worth quoting at length:

"If the United States had refused to
intervene in 1917, would a German victory in 1918 have been a better historical
alternative? The answer is debatable. By 1918, the Germans, exasperated by the
Allied refusal to settle for anything less than a knockout blow, were
contemplating peace terms as harsh and vindictive as those the French and
British imposed, with Wilson's weary consent, in the Treaty of Versailles.

"There is another possibility in
this newly popular game of what-if. What would have happened if Wilson had taken
William Jennings Bryan's advice and practiced real rather than sham neutrality?
Without the backing of American weaponry, munitions, and loans, the Allies would
have been forced to abandon their goal of the knockout blow. The war might have
ended in 1916 with a negotiated peace based on the mutual admission that the
conflict had become a stalemate. As a genuine neutral, Wilson might even have
persuaded both sides to let him be a mediator. Lloyd George's argument—that
unless the United States intervened, Wilson would have no place at the peace
table—was specious at best. Both sides would have needed America's wealth and
industrial resources to rebuild their shattered economies.

"Germany's aims before the war began
were relatively modest. Basically, Berlin sought an acknowledgment that it was
Europe's dominant power. It wanted an independent Poland and nationhood for the
Baltic states to keep Russia a safe distance from its eastern border. Also on
the wish list was a free trade zone in which German goods could circulate
without crippling tariffs in France, Italy, Scandinavia and Austria-Hungary. It
is not terribly different from the role Germany plays today in the European
Economic Union. But the British Tories could not tolerate such a commercial
rival in 1914 and chose war.

"Some people whose minds still
vibrate to the historic echoes of Wellington House's propaganda argue that by
defeating Germany in 1918, the United States saved itself from imminent conquest
by the Hun. The idea grows more fatuous with every passing decade. A nation that
had suffered more than 5 million casualties, including almost 2 million dead,
was not likely to attack the strongest nation on the globe without pausing for
perhaps a half century to rethink its policies. One can just as easily argue
that the awful cost of the war would have enabled Germany's liberals to seize
control of the country from the conservatives and force the kaiser to become a
constitutional monarch like his English cousin.

"A victorious Germany would have had
no need of political adventurers such as Adolf Hitler. Nor would this
counterfactual Germany have inserted the Bolsheviks into Russia and supported
them with secret-service money. Lenin and Trotsky might have agitated in a
political vacuum in Switzerland unto a crabbed old age. Or ventured a revolution
in their homeland that would have come to a swift and violent end. On the eve of
the war, Russia had the fastest-growing economy in Europe. The country was being
transformed by the dynamics of capitalism into a free society. The war created
the collapse that gave Bolshevism its seventy-year reign of blood and terror."

Let me conclude by reiterating a
Hayekian point: All human action—by
its nature—leads
to unintended consequences. But war ~especially~ leads to far-reaching
unintended consequences, and most of these are negative. The reason for this is
that it creates a dynamic that feeds on destruction: destruction of life,
liberty, and property. It creates a host of institutions geared toward such
destruction, and these institutions—no matter how important they might be to a
relatively free society's defense of life, liberty, and property—have had
long-lasting effects on their diminution over time. That's because the
institutions left in place ~after~ the war are almost always consolidated in the
peace, and used to further erode the very values that they were put in place to
"defend."

If war is necessary against those
who have attacked innocent American lives, then it is all the more necessary to
pay careful attention to the kinds of strategies and institutions that are
created to forge this battle. The Iraq war was unnecessary, in my view, to the
defense of American security—but it has now extended the dynamics of unintended
consequences in ways that we have yet to understand fully. We have not learned
the lesson of the complications that result from "pragmatic" US intervention
abroad. We don't wish to concern ourselves with the new oxygen that we may be
providing for future flames—that will consume more American cities and lives.

Karl Marx said it best when he
declared that history repeats itself: first as tragedy, then as farce.

Yes, of course, I too agree that the
ultimate factor in driving human history is "philosophy," and that, ultimately,
it is "bad" philosophy that is the primary cause of global deterioration. But at
her best, I do not believe that Rand endorsed a simple one-way, mono-causal
theory of history; I think she was very much aware of mutual implications and
reciprocal connections among various factors.

The reciprocal connection between
"bad philosophy" and "bad politics," then, is precisely what Rand was driving at
in her discussion of the ways in which advancing statism made tribalism
possible---just as advancing tribalism made statism necessary. The ~whole~ thing
is driven, underneath it all, by philosophic premises that attack the
authenticity and dignity of the individual. But, in Rand's view, that does not
relieve one of the responsibility of understanding the myriad ways in which
these factors interrelate. That's why she focused on the primacy of the
political in any attempt to grasp the contemporary power of tribalism. Each
~required~ the other.

I don' t think Rand's comments on
tribalism and statism are any less applicable to areas of the world that have
never emerged from tribalism. I think that her focus in the essay, "Global
Balkanization," is ~precisely~ the ~global~ nature of this reciprocal connection
between advancing statism and tribalist fragmentation.

Additionally, I don't believe I
changed the focus in our discussion from Islam to America's deterioration. In
your previous post, for example, you drew a direct correlation between the
spread of "Multi-culturalism, Identity politics and religious super-toleration"
in America and the spread "of anti-American hatred in Islamic countries,"
particularly "strong among the most educated---especially American educated." I
was accepting the principle that just as Islamic intellectuals have not been
hermetically sealed from tribalist developments in American intellectual life,
so too the politics and economics of the Islamic world have not been
hermetically sealed from the statist developments in American political life.
Tribalism and statism go hand-in-hand; they advance through mutual
reinforcement---on any and all levels of social life, and on a global scale. The
developments don't cease at America's national borders. Rand recognized how
America's "New Fascism" was exported abroad, with statist businessmen, the
overwhelming profiteers of the system, key to the internationalization of the
mixed economy and its tribal warfare. As I write in my article, "Understanding
the Global Crisis"

----------

[Rand] lamented the
internationalization of the New Fascism; given “the interdependence of the
Western world,” all countries are “leaning on one another as bad risks, bad
consuming parasite borrowers.” She recognized how the system’s dynamics
propelled such internationalization, but advised: “The less ties we have with
any other countries, the better off we will be.” Suggesting a biological analogy
in warning against the spread of neofascism, she quips: “If you have a disease,
should you get a more serious form of it, and will that help you?”
(“Egalitarianism and Inflation” Q&A tape, 1974). In discussing a section of the
1972 Communique between the U.S. and Red China, Rand suggests a universal
principle. “[L]ike charity,” she writes, “courage, consistency, integrity have
to begin at home . . . [w]hat we are now doing to others . . . we began by doing
it to ourselves. We are the victims of self-inflicted bacteriological warfare:
altruism is the bacteria of amorality. Pragmatism is the bacteria of impotence”
(“The Shanghai Gesture,” Part III).

----------

I should mention in this context too
that I am not dismissing the "Islamic threat"---though I stand by my contention
that the "Islamic threat" is no more hegemonic than was the Communist one during
the Cold War. There is simply too much rivalrous and lethal conflict among
twenty-first century Islamicists---just as there was too much rivalrous and
lethal conflict among twentieth-century Communists---to constitute a single,
monolithic "Islamic threat."

Yes, the irrationality of Islam in
general is a ~necessary~ ingredient in any structure of explanation for the
current global crisis. It is just not ~sufficient~ to explain the current global
crisis. That's why we can't minimize the role of US intervention in the Middle
East: it is the ~sufficient~ ingredient, the catalyst, for this combustible
situation. It is part of the broader historical context that can't be dropped
without doing damage to the nature and character of our understanding of, or our
proposed solutions to, this crisis. (BTW, for one "proposed solution," check out
my Liberty & Power Group Blog posting: "The
Three-State Solution (scroll down).")

Now, it's true that Islam has been
at the heart of "periodic aggression over 1400 years," but I think the same can
be said about Christianity. There have been plenty of wars of aggression that
have been rationalized and legitimized by those who seek to bring Christ to the
heathen. So much of European colonization was accompanied by Christian
missionary zeal. There are some fanatics who would argue that even the Nazi
Holocaust was payback for Jewish deicide.

I'm ~not~ defending Islam ~or~
Christianity here; I'm simply acknowledging the role of religious ideas in the
genesis of war and oppression throughout human history.

As far as Islam's inability to come
to grips with modernity: All the more reason why the ~essential~ war should
remain a ~cultural~ one, not to be aggravated, diluted, or distorted by
continuing long-run US political and military machinations in the Middle East.
Such US intervention continues to benefit some groups---especially autocratic
Islamic regimes---at the expense of others. If the cultures of Islam are "sick,"
then US and Western political and military intervention on behalf of even sicker
autocratic political structures has done ~nothing~ to improve the cultural
health of Islam. If anything, this intervention has stultified the cultures
further, leading to the entrenchment and exportation of, for example, Wahhabi
fanaticism, which is propped up by Saudi-ARAMCO profits.

Understand, therefore, that it's not
merely the US being "scape-goated" by Islamic fundamentalists. It's that the
whole irrationality of the US neo-corporatist political economy, which has
pitted one Islamic group against another in Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia,
Afghanistan, and so forth, has come crashing into the whole irrationality of
Islamic culture---creating a situation that is far more lethal in its totality
than any of its constituent parts taken separately. It therefore matters a great
deal what the US does or doesn't do in that section of the world, because the US
has become an entrenched aspect of the problem, internal to the dynamics as they
unfold.

And that's why, fundamentally, I
agree: this is a philosophical and cultural battle. It's one that will require a
philosophical and cultural revolution to overturn the irrationality on both
sides of this divide. And it's a battle that can never be won by acceptance of
Wilsonian internationalism of a liberal left-wing or neoconservative right-wing
character. "Nation-building" is impossible when the cultures upon which one is
trying to build have no understanding of freedom, and when the builders
themselves have destroyed freedom within their own country.

AEM writes, in response to my assertion
that Al Qaeda must be crushed because they were behind 9/11: >>No, what you've
seen are video tapes of someone you were told was Osama Bin Laden saying
something you were told said that when translated to english, and this isn't
even proof anyway, because you've only been told that Al Queda exists. You
believe Al Queda exists, this belief may be reasonable (I don't think it is)...
but it is merely a belief. You have not seen evidence that they did, and you
certainly have no evidence that they were behind 9/11. All you have are what you
were told to believe by the government. Not that I disagree with the rest of
your post. I just see that the people who have gone down the path that leads
them to supporting this war, were started on that path by confusing belief with
truth. By believing what they were told, absent any evidence. To date I have
seen little actual evidence of who was behind 9/11. Our government issued press
releases within 48 hours and everyone believed them and has not questioned them
since.<<

I actually have my doubts about the
full story of 9/11 as well; I have a hunch that we're going to find out a lot
more about that "day of infamy"---just as we found out a lot more about another
"Day of Infamy" that took place on December 7, 1941.

But just as I am confident that the
Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, so too am I confident that Al Qaeda operatives
were behind 9/11. I have seen enough tapes ~outside~ of US government sources
(Al-Jazeera broadcasts, etc.) and enough evidence of the connections between the
19 hijackers and Bin Laden to conclude that this terror network exists and is
lethal to the security of Americans. It would be a lot less lethal, as I said,
if the US got out of the habit of sowing the seeds of its own
destruction---across a variety of modalities.

One other brief point about war in
general: I would agree with WS that it is far better
to have a "marketized" Germany and Japan, than a "militarized" Germany and
Japan. But when you consider how the seeds for World War II were sown from World
War I and its aftermath, when you consider how World War II led, additionally,
to the surrender of half of Europe to the Soviet Union, billions of US taxpayer
dollars in Lend Lease to Soviet dictators, and the birth of the Cold War, I'm
not entirely sure that it was a "good war." I'm ~not~ saying that Nazism,
fascism, and Japanese militarism should have been appeased or left alone; I'm
simply saying that a lot of what led to that war, and a lot of what happened in
its aftermath, could have been---should have been---avoided. (Rand herself
argued that the US should have avoided WW 1, and that the US should have allowed
the Nazis and the Soviets to destroy each other in the European theatre of
WW2---before entering that conflict.)

In any event, this is all historical
speculation... something that never leads to any definitive conclusions.
However, for a very interesting take on World War 1---perhaps the ~defining~ war
of the modern times---and what could have been, see Thomas Fleming's superb
book, THE ILLUSION OF VICTORY: AMERICA IN WORLD WAR I (Basic Books, 2003).

Jis right that we have to be very careful
about what factors we grant greater weight to in any attempt at social
explanation. Before I begin, I want to offer one word of caution. Just because I
have argued that the recent wave of anti-US terrorism can be partially
~explained~ by the contradictory Middle Eastern policies of past US
administrations does not mean that the terrorism directed at innocent civilians
is ~justified~. There is a difference between explanation and justification;
~explaining~ part of the context of an event does not ~justify~, morally, the
murder of innocents. ~Nothing~ justifies 9/11.

The heart of J's argument is
expressed here:

"I'd argue that Islam is the cause
of the hostility to the West and to America as the cultural, political,
economic, and military giant of the West. Whatever actions we may have taken are
used as excuses for an irrational hatred that needs no excuses. Our past
failures may have had an effect on the timing, the exact place and particular
events. However, the general developments are driven by and determined from the
ideas of our Islamic enemies."

First, I ~agree~ that there is a
profound antipathy between Islam and the ideals of reason, individualism, and
capitalism---which the West has ~traditionally~ embraced. Please understand,
however, that when I emphasize structural (political and economic) factors in
the genesis of ~this~ wave of anti-US terrorism, I do so because the antipathy
between Islam and "Western" ideals is ~nothing~ new. It's been fomenting for
centuries, ever since Islam itself turned against the Aristotelian ideas of its
own premier philosophers, Al-Farabi, Avicenna, and Averroes. Why does ~this~
terrorism come out at ~this~ time, in ~this~ place, in ~this~ particular
fashion? The broad philosophical/cultural issues are important; but they are
~still~ broad generalizations that don't ~explain~ this ~particular~ global
crisis.

Second, it would be nice to think
that the West is reason, individualism, and capitalism incarnate. Relatively
speaking, it is. But, in actuality, it isn't. As J himself recognizes, the
West's intellectual and cultural establishment has been cutting its own throat
for many years, teaching the poisonous doctrines that have undermined rational
values. Hand-in-hand with this embrace of an anti-rational, anti-individualist
philosophical framework, the West has adopted a profoundly anti-capitalist
politics for well over a century. The intellectual ~crime~ is that the West has
come to symbolize "capitalism," but the "capitalism" it practices is that of a
neo-corporatist "mixed economy," a system that Ayn Rand rightfully designated as
the "new fascism." But it is "capitalism" that gets the blame for all the social
distortions---the boom-bust cycles, the wars, and the social
fragmentation---that state intervention makes possible.

It is because of the centrality of
the state in social life that Rand recognized the ~structural~ as central to any
explanation of global crisis. In her essay, "Global Balkanization," she writes:

"... there can be no doubt that the
spread of tribalism is an enormously anti-intellectual evil. If, as I said, some
elements of 'ethnicity' did remain in the backyards of civilized countries and
stayed harmless for centuries, why the sudden epidemic of their rebirth?
Irrationalism and collectivism---the philosophical notions of the prehistorical
eras---had to be implemented in practice, in ~political~ action, before they
could engulf the greatest scientific-technological achievements mankind had ever
reached. The political cause of tribalism's rebirth is the ~mixed economy~---the
transitional stage of the formerly civilized countries of the West on their way
to the political level from which the rest of the world has never emerged: the
level of permanent tribal warfare."

And this is the point: Tribalism has
always existed. But it became a ~geopolitical force to be reckoned with~---as I
pointed out---precisely because of the implementation of the political ideology
of collectivism and the implementation of pragmatism as a policy tool. The "mulitculturalism,"
"identity politics," and "religious super-toleration" that we all despise---the
ethnic, tribal, and religious warfare that we all decry---therefore becomes
possible only because it is driven by the political, by the ~structural~. "There
is no surer way to infect mankind with hatred---brute, blind, virulent
hatred---than by splitting it into ethnic groups or tribes," Rand states.
"Tribal or ethnic rule has existed, at some time, in every part of the world,
and, in some country, in every period of mankind's history." But in order to
explain its ~specific~ incarnation in the modern world as a force of conflict
and war, Rand knew that she had to look ~elsewhere~ in her model of social
explanation. She knew that the structural---the politico-economic---was the
~catalyst~ for these historically ~specific~ manifestations.

This does ~not~ mean that the
revolution we seek is primarily ~political~. It is, indeed, philosophical and
cultural. But it took centuries to secularize the Western mind---and even the
West is struggling for its survival because its intellectuals have embraced the
most anti-rational doctrines imaginable. In order to deal with this crisis,
however, it is essential to focus on the political as much as the cultural and
the personal. Objectivism requires a multidimensional revolution. Nothing less
will do.

Just a few comments in response to
the ~many~ that have been made on various threads:

1. J, you
make some very good points. Objectivism is, indeed, "a philosophy, and the value
of a philosophy is the power of using fundamentals." But I also believe that Ayn
Rand used Objectivism to construct a framework for the critical analysis of
social problems---not analysis for the sake of analysis, but analysis for the
sake of changing society (like Marx, in this regard, who said: "The philosophers
have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to
change it.")

Toward that end, I believe that
Rand's framework is an engine of integration, one that can help us to analyze
any and all social problems on three levels---interconnected, inter-related, not
to be sundered:

Level 1: the personal (which
includes an analysis of the ethical, psychological, and psycho-epistemological
factors at work);

Level 2: the cultural (which
includes an analysis of the aesthetic, linguistic, pedagogical, and ideological
factors at work);

Level 3: the structural (which
includes an analysis of the political and economic factors at work).

And here's a
link to some
reflections on how the model might be applied to the construction of an
Objectivist analytical framework for global politics
(... scroll down to the bottom of that post, which is at the Light of Reason
blog of Arthur Silber).

A philosophical analysis of the deep
differences between Western and Islamic cultures is essential---but it is
primarily a Level 2 analysis. Rand went beyond a strict Level 2 analysis and
conjoined it to Levels 1 and 3; her criticism of many libertarians was,
essentially, that they reified a Level 3 analysis as if it were the whole. Let's
not make the same mistake of reifying Level 2 as if
~it~ were the whole.

But you are right, J: Culture is
crucial. And you are also right that Marxism has often led an attack on the
basis of fundamentals "with considerable success." The success of the Marxists
is derived, partially, from the powerful integration of their model; the
premises upon which the model is based may be wrong, but the ~integrated~
structure of the model fueled the methodological ~radicalism~ that Marxism
offered to its adherents.

Objectivism has an integrated
structure too; it has the added attraction of being, in essentials, correct. So,
yep: "Let's keep our focus on the fundamentals."

2. Good points made by D; I, too,
applauded the US withdrawal from Saudi Arabia. And, yes, the Saudis are making
concessions---and may even move toward the appearance of elections. My central
point, however, is that much of what has happened in Saudi Arabia is traceable
to the insidious relationship of the US, Saudis and corporatist ARAMCO partners
at the heart of the oil business in that region of the world.

3. On the peacenik, warmonger,
"screw you" and other muck-raking comments of C: Thanks much, C, for the
civility of your most recent response.

4. When I said that the US made Al
Qaeda and Islamic fundamentalism into a "geopolitical force to be reckoned
with," I did mean that past policies of previous administrations---from the time
of US assistance to the mujahideen during the Soviet-Afghanistan war, to US
support for the Shah of Iran, to US support of Hussein's Iraq in the Iran-Iraq
war, to US support of the House of Sa'ud---has contributed to an environment in
which such fundamentalism coalesced around anti-US sentiment. That anti-US
sentiment is ~not~ simply the outgrowth of anti-Western cultural views---even
though these views are surely a factor in the current crisis. And yes, of
course: The theocratic fundamentalists may have fought against the oppression of
Hussein and the Shah and so forth, but they have merely sought to replace one
form of oppression with another.

5. I do not claim that Hussein was a
"potential" evil. He was/is evil, if by "evil" we mean: anti-human life. And,
for the record, I ~was~ outraged when Clinton attacked Haiti and Kosovo, and
condemned those actions as well. Presidents have been intervening all over the
globe for more than a hundred years; I condemn all such intervention---unless it
is in response to a real or imminent threat to the security of the United
States.

6. As for the conflicting evidence
given the President: It seems to me that it is now coming out that there was not
much "conflicting evidence" at all. It seems to me that the evidence was molded
to fit a preconceived model for the Iraqi invasion. I could be wrong---but given
the US government's penchant for ~lying~ to get into a war (Vietnam, anyone?)
and the endless paper trail provided by all sorts of Pentagon Papers over the
years, I really don't trust Washington. (See an
article by Richard Cohen, who was pro-war as I recall, in yesterday's NEW
YORK DAILY NEWS.)

What I find rather remarkable,
actually, is how so many Objectivists get so indignant over the religiosity and
domestic economic interventionism of the Bush administration---the invocation of
Christian symbolism, the Medicare boondoggle, the steel tariffs, and so
forth---but they give the administration a virtual "free pass" on matters of
foreign policy. It's as if there's this disconnect: the administration that
can't be trusted in domestic affairs is suddenly the paragon of honesty in
foreign affairs. Whassup wit dat?

Ayn Rand once wrote: "Foreign policy
is merely a consequence of domestic policy." She understood that government
intervention had consequences that did not cease at the nation's borders. That
radical insight seems to have been lost on a whole generation of her followers.
The administration that you oppose ~domestically~ is doing the same thing in
global affairs. And the actions it takes abroad are having horrific domestic
effects---rising deficits and debts, an endless array of Patriot Acts that will
reinvigorate a network of domestic spies on the American people, and the endless
threat of a resumption of military conscription.

7. As for the administration's
ability to adapt to reality: Yes, Rumsfield and Wolfowitz think it might be
self-defeating to have a long-term occupation. Why weren't these concerns voiced
prior to the invasion?

But on another level, the whole
issue of long-term occupation is not about the level of troop commitment. The
problem is that once the US invaded, it set into motion a ~system~ of Iraqi
occupation and reconstruction, involving ~billions~ of dollars of
corporate-military-government largesse, all at the expense of the American
taxpayer and at the expense of American lives. That ~system~ takes on a life of
its own. One can't simply "opt out." That's the dynamic of government
intervention---whether it takes place within the United States, or without.When I talked about this for ~months~ prior to the US invasion, I was
shot down by my Objectivist colleagues who told me that worrying about the
occupation was no reason to oppose the invasion: as if, suddenly, Rand's maxim
to plan ~long-range~ didn't apply. Bush is not going to "cut and run." The US
will not "cut and run." The ~system~ that was put into place by this invasion
makes such an action a virtual impossibility.

8. On another subject entirely: I
never had a chance to thank JS for his kind comments,
and SR---for sharing with us his reflections of the 40th anniversary of the JFK
assassination, which took place in 1963, when I was 3... and my recollections of
it are pretty vivid too.

I have not denied the fact that Al
Qaeda must be crushed. (And I do believe Al Qaeda exists, and I have seen those
video tapes of Osama Bin Laden ~boasting~ about the 9/11 attacks---and relating
the story of how he told his comrades to be "patient" after they'd seen the
first plane hit the North Tower... because something bigger and better was about
to happen.) But more importantly, I believe that the whole ~framework~ of US
foreign policy made Al Qaeda and this insanity of Islamic fundamentalism into a
geopolitical force to be reckoned with. Unless this framework is fundamentally
altered, nothing is going to change in the long run.

Yes, Hussein once possessed WMDs---the
US gave him the wherewithal to produce them in the first place. Hussein was a
disgusting, despicable despot. There are lots of despots on the planet Earth. If
we dispense with the doctrine of imminent threat, then there is nothing stopping
the US government from going to war everywhere and anywhere there is "evil" or
even the ~potential~ of "evil." There's no reason why the US couldn't ~contain~
any threat by Hussein; the US contained THE SOVIET UNION... which makes Hussein
look like a pip-squeak by comparison. And the US didn't have to invade and
occupy the Soviet Union to achieve such containment through deterrence.

As for J's comments that my
"original remarks [on the "Nuke Mecca" crowd in the aftermath of 9/11 were] a
considerable distortion of the truth": Please understand that the comments I
made, to which you refer, were written on October 3, 2001---one month after the
terrorist attacks. We were all reeling from those attacks here in NYC (and if
you're from NYC, you'll appreciate that). These comments were "personal
reflections," not a full-fledged analysis of all the subtleties in the various
arguments that were being presented. I referred to the "Nuke Mecca" crowd
because, at the time, ~everywhere~ I turned on all the Objectivist lists, there
was a sizable contingent of people who were calling for the nuclear incineration
of the Islamic Middle East. And if you do go to the Pisaturo article to which I
linked, you'll see that the viewpoint was real, and needed to be addressed.

C, I never
said to stake your "life on the inept United Nation's ability to determine
objective facts." I am not a fan of the U.N., which is indeed a "center of
global corruption"---and also part of a network of foreign aid institutions that
work closely with US corporate-statists---and I think the building in Manhattan
would be better used for office space.

But you can't pick and choose your
"intelligence"---not when the Bush administration was being told by various
intelligence sources that Hussein ~didn't~ possess nuclear weapons and that the
evidence just wasn't there.

I've ~never~ projected "hidden"
motivations onto people's actions: I take them at their word. Bush stated he
wanted to go into Iraq to engage in "regime change"---and his administration
plotted that prior to 9/11---and he stated he wanted to nation-build in Iraq...
and I am against those ~stated~ goals. No reason to impute other motives here;
the stated ones are good enough for me to repudiate. But once you add the whole
network of corporate-statist reconstruction to this picture, it gets uglier and
uglier.

As for not supporting "the Wilsonian
doctrine of external 'nation building' or the 'democratization' of a 15th
Century tribal culture," it doesn't matter. Not one bit. You, C, are not in
power. No Objectivists are in power. No libertarians are in power. The Wilsonian
doctrine is the ~stated goal~ of the neocons in the Bush administration. ~They~
are the ones exerting a dominant influence on public policy. In the end, all you
"pro-war" Objectivists have become the equivalent of Lenin's "useful idiots" for
the neocon program. And, as an aside: I have ~never~ asserted that the neocons
constitute a "Jewish cabal." I am ~second to none~ in my disgust with racism and
anti-Semitism; this is not about ethnicity or religion... it's about ~ideas~...
and the neocon ideas---STINK, as my Sicilian uncle would have said: "from the
head." Or as another old cliche goes: The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
The derivative ~fruit~ that is neoconservatism comes from the ~tree~ that is
Wilsonian internationalism. I reject the former ~because~ I reject the latter.
(And I learned to reject the latter ~from Ayn Rand~. One thing that seems to
have gotten lost in this whole discussion, on a list inspired by Rand's
philosophy, is just how ~Rand~ dealt with these issues. As I've maintained, her
larger critique of the "New Fascism" is something we can learn from and apply.)

There will be ~no~ "short-term
military occupation to reduce the likelihood of SH being replaced by something
worse"---the US is in Iraq to stay for as far as the eye can see. That is the
way of US foreign policy. We can deny all we want that ~history~ had anything to
do with 9/11. But we'll be doomed to repeat it---as Marx said: first as tragedy,
then as farce. (And ~I~ never said that US foreign policy was the ~only~ "cause"
of the current crisis; it is part of a complex picture... an important part, but
not the only part.)

As for any comparisons between Iraq
and Vietnam: Iraq ~is~, indeed, Iraq---and the situation is potentially ~much~
worse... because whereas the Vietnam War was, essentially, a civil war between
North and South, Iraq is not even a homogeneous nation. It is a makeshift
by-product of the British colonization of Mesopotamia, made up of warring
tribes... Sunnis, Kurds, Shiites (indeed, multiple tribes within the Shia),
Turkomanns, and so forth. The US would stand a better chance of "building" new
nations if it broke up Iraq and started from scratch. But that won't
happen---especially since Turkey, the US ally to the North, would be
dead-set-against any independent Kurdistan on its borders that might inspire a
similar movement for independence among Kurds within Turkey (who are already
being blamed for the recent bombings in Istanbul).

This is a freaking mess. And it was
dictated predominantly by a neoconservative political agenda. The fountainheads
of terrorism in the Middle East are more likely to be found in Pakistan (another
nation with nuclear weapons) and Saudi Arabia---but they too are US allies. And
they won't be touched. Not in any significant way. And, no, this is not a call
to Bomb Mecca. It is simply a recognition of the ~reality~ of US government and
corporate ties to---and complicity with---oppressive, duplicitous regimes. The
cycle won't end, until its broken---fundamentally, radically.

Finally, I thought we were debating
ideas and policy. Is it really necessary, C, to say "screw you." That's a bit
over the top, ya think?

At 06:03 PM 11/23/2003 -0800, in
response to my point [I think that Objectivism is defined by adherence to
certain core essentials in each of the major branches of philosophy, and that
the best way to approach it---or any philosophy---is to apply these core
essentials to the context of your own life], V writes: >>I
agree with this point; one has to define a philosophy according to its position
on core issues. Still, if your context leads you to disagree with at least a
part of someone else's stand on the core issues, then you are subscribing to a
different philosophy, not a different version of the same philosophy.<<

Chris replies:
That's interesting. I think there are at least two ways of looking at
this. If one agrees with every last aspect of a philosophy (in its core or
fundamental elements), one can say: "I am an adherent of X." And those who don't
agree with every last aspect of a philosophy, under this criterion, would have
to say: "I'm not an adherent of X."

But I do think there is such a thing
as a "school" of thought that develops around the core essentials, and not
everyone who is part of that school is necessarily in full agreement---down to
the last detail---with the founder of the school. In this way, we can talk about
"Aristotelian" philosophy, in which one might say, for example, that Aquinas is
as much an "Aristotelian" as he is the founder of Thomism. Rand herself saw
Objectivism as "Aristotelian" in this broad sense---since she envisioned the
history of philosophy as a broad clash between Aristotelian and Platonic
traditions.

Likewise, I think that intellectual
historians are still likely---years from now---to look at David Kelley,
Nathaniel Branden, Leonard Peikoff, and others as "Objectivists," whatever the
differences between them, for the same reason that such historians look at
Engels, Bernstein, Lenin, Trotsky, Lukacs, and Marcuse as "Marxists." Now, it's
true that Rand once felt sympathy for Marx, who said, upon hearing some of the
formulations of his "followers": "I am not a Marxist." But that doesn't
eliminate the historical reality that "Marxism" is a school of thought.

Perhaps what will happen with
Objectivism is what has happened to Marxism. One can use descriptive adjectives
to refer to the distinctions in the Marxist tradition, such as, for example:
Engelsian Marxism; Marxist-Leninism; Maoist Marxism; analytic Marxism; Frankfurt
school Marxism; and so forth. And, in a sense, some of this is already happening
with Objectivism: the orthodoxy, the "neo-Objectivists," and so forth. Or
perhaps there will be a distinction between "Objectivist" and "Randian" schools
of thought: where "Objectivist" might designate strict adherence to every last
detail of Rand's philosophic framework, and "Randian" might designate "of,
relating to, or resembling" Rand's philosophic framework. In this instance, one
can say that "Randian" is the broader designation, within which "Objectivist" is
one possibility. (But, then, how does one designate those who believe that
"Objectivist" must entail agreement with ~everything~ Rand ever uttered on ~any~
subject, from facial hair to Beethoven? Ah, well, that type of thing is more
likely to be dismissed, correctly, in my view, as a manifestation of a Randian
"cult"... but that's another subject entirely.)

V writes: So what counts as a "core
issue" in philosophy? I'll concede that one's factual understanding of
homosexuality as such does not define one's philosophy. Nevertheless, how one
evaluates such facts may well depend on the fundamental philosophical principles
one holds, so errors in evaluation may reflect fundamental philosophical errors
and not just particular misunderstandings about homosexuality.

Chris replies:
I think the core issues are the "philosophy on
one foot" designations that Rand herself mentioned: adherence to objective
reality, reason, egoism, and capitalism. But it is true that what matters is how
Rand ~defends~ the core positions, and traces the interconnections among them.
It is also true that she may have made errors of application, or errors in her
core positions, which lead to errors of application.

V writes: It's true that Rand didn't
spell out what "unfortunate premises" she had in mind, but I'm not sure that
this really matters. What's important here is that sexual orientation is not
merely a product of one's premises, notwithstanding the contrary assumptions
Objectivism makes regarding the origins of human desires.

Chris replies:
I think that's correct; then, I think, the question becomes: What is the
Objectivist view of "emotion"? I discuss some of this in Chapter 7 of
AYN RAND: THE RUSSIAN RADICAL, where I suggest
that there are more complexities to the theory than might appear at first
glance. And I do think that both Branden and Peikoff have made statements that
attempt to redress what is sometimes viewed as an imbalance between reason and
emotion in Rand's formulations; Branden goes so far as to talk about sexual
orientation as a complex product of many factors, from genetics and biology to
the environmental and the volitional---and not every manifestation of a sexual
orientation is necessarily the result of the exact same "mix" of factors.

So, the question becomes: If one has
a slightly different view of the complexity of human emotion, but still adheres
to the core principles of Objectivism in metaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics
(not Rand's aesthetic ~tastes~, rather her views of the nature and function of
art in human existence), ethics, and politics---is one an Objectivist?

Well, I think so... but perhaps "Randian"
is still the broader designation.

W, I have ~always~ supported a retaliatory response against Al Qaeda.
What you probably recall is that I've been consistently opposed to all the
policies of what Rand called "the new fascism" since the very beginning of this
crisis. On the Philosophy of Objectivism list (OWL), I posted after the
September 11th attack saying all the things I'm currently saying---about the
roots of Islamic terrorism, the looney-ness of the "Bomb Mecca" crowd, and so
forth. But ~nowhere~ in those posts is there a free pass for terrorists. In
fact, in my very first post I called for the terrorists responsible to be hunted
down, and brought to justice, "whether they be the actual terrorists or those
who funded and supported them." No difference, in my view, from what President
Bush was saying.

That was followed
on October 3, 2001, with my FREE RADICAL article, "Personal Reflections from New
York," where I make the same argument I'm currently making, voicing my
opposition to "sustained domestic or foreign intervention, even if it is now
necessary to fight the very terrorists our policies have nurtured." Here's a
larger excerpt---to show that my opinion is virtually unchanged:

=======

>>. . . The
problem is that this war involves unrelenting and arbitrary terror. Terrorism,
by its nature, undermines our need for efficacy in such a way as to almost
paralyze our ability to act. It strikes civilians in unpredictable and violent
ways; paranoia becomes a social disease as even the people who live next door
suddenly become suspects. We want to resume our "normal" way of life, but some
of us can't help but feel that our attempts at routine are temporary and
illusory as we await the next catastrophe. . . . There is no room for moral
relativism, as our mayor Rudy Giuliani declared before the United Nations. The
individuals who planned this attack and who carried it out were evil. Their
economic and political supporters are evil. The theocratic values to which they
owe their allegiance can only lead to the continued destruction of human life.
It is necessary to wage war against this evil, but how that war is waged is of
the utmost importance to our future.

Ayn Rand herself
recognized the "Roots of War"--and argued correctly that every time the U.S.
government got involved in some foreign conflagration, it has had long-term
deleterious consequences. The war to make the world safe for democracy (WW I)
gave us Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and Communist Russia. The second world war
delivered Eastern Europe to the Soviets, and the Cold War that resulted brought
us the Korean and Vietnam debacles. Rand was an "America Firster" in many ways.
So am I. Ultimately, we should be patrolling our own borders and keeping our own
civilians safe, rather than policing every potential hot spot across the globe.
Many of these "hot spots" have been engaged in religious battles that have
spread over millennia. We are not going to resolve their problems; we can't even
resolve our own.

The current
crisis cannot be disconnected from the history of American foreign policy.
Understanding this context will never excuse the terrorists, but it does help us
to understand why America is always being targeted. Yes, the terrorists oppose
our libertarian ideals. But much of what we are experiencing today is a direct
outgrowth of decades of misguided Cold War policy. This government was willing
to pay any price to stop the Soviets, even though their Communist system was
being taxed beyond belief to the point of self-annihilation. We supported the
"Freedom Fighters" in Afghanistan--and now those very same "Freedom Fighters"
constitute the Taliban, operatives of US intelligence in the early 1980s, who
are among those warring against us. Our involvement overseas--manipulating
everything from the international monetary and banking system to the creation of
foreign aid networks that act like gigantic transfer-payment mechanisms for
multinational corporations, our military presence in
God-knows-how-many-countries--has created the context for the current nightmare.
The chickens have come home to roost and innocent civilians are now paying the
price. (And don't be surprised if among the future chickens one will find South
American drug cartels bombing North American cities, because we are funding
almost as many "unsavory" types down South in our immoral "war" against drugs.)

What disturbs me
is that so many Objectivists seem remarkably insightful when it comes to
understanding the genesis, history, and nature of government intervention in the
domestic economy---advocating the complete elimination of subsidies, tariffs,
taxes, regulations, and what-not---but that when it comes to the genesis,
history, and nature of US government intervention abroad, there is myopia. We
applaud the American founding fathers, but we seem to go blind to their call for
no "foreign entanglements." Simply put: We have no business involving ourselves
in the affairs of distant lands. Free trade, yes. State support of foreign
investments, no. Economic liberty, yes. Political entanglements, no.

In the meanwhile,
Leonard Peikoff is busy castigating the United States government for
"appeasement," a policy, he says, that began in 1951 when Iran nationalized
Western oil. Because of our "frightened silence," because we refused to threaten
Arab oil states with nuclear annihilation back then, we have been suffering the
consequences ever since. But it was not my understanding that the U.S.
government should be protecting the investments of multinational corporations
that were fool enough to do business with despots abroad. When you contract with
people who do not recognize the sanctity of property rights, you do not have the
right to force the American taxpayer and the American armed services to defend
your failed investments.

We stand on the
precipice of a new war economy that, if sustained over a long period of time,
will eradicate economic and civil liberties and undermine the volunteer army.
With Jack Wheeler calling for the bombing of Mecca (which would only
"radicalize" the millions of "moderate" Muslims living in the United States,
many of whom came here to escape theocracy abroad), and Peikoff advocating the
nuking of Iran, I fear the permanent war economy and the culture of violence it
must breed.

Force may
annihilate a people, but it will never alter the ideas of a culture. This
principle is as valid for us as it is for our enemies. If we want to fight
tyranny, we have an idea, a more potent bomb than any nuclear device. That idea
is freedom. It is time to fight for freedom, for all its preconditions and
effects. It is time to put the enemies of freedom--at home and abroad--on
notice. Our choice is not freedom OR security. It is freedom AND security.
Laissez Faire MEANS hands-off. We will not stand for sustained domestic or
foreign intervention, even if it is now necessary to fight the very terrorists
our policies have nurtured.<<

=======

So, I warned of
the problems of a sustained war, but supported the war against the
terrorists---and those who supported them. And I specifically mention the
situation in Afghanistan as among those requiring a suitable response. If my
emphasis was---and remains---on the interventionist issue, it is only because
virtually ~nobody~ in Objectivist circles was talking about that back then, and
only a very ~few~ are talking about it now. This is an aspect of the larger
Randian critique that has been obscured, regrettably in my view.

While there have
been notable exceptions within Objectivism to this---Russ Madden, Arthur Silber,
and others here---the ~overwhelming~ majority of Objectivists have been trying
to out-hawk the neocons. Many extol the virtues of the neoconservatives (take a
look at Tracinski's praise for the "breathtaking" neocon vision)---without any
understanding of the neocon's Wilsonian internationalist roots (indeed, these
roots stretch back to Trotsky and the left-wing "social democracy" movement). In
general, the Objectivist establishment objects to the ~way~ the war is being
handled in Iraq---not to the war itself. The overwhelming majority of the
articles in THE INTELLECTUAL ACTIVIST, NAVIGATOR, FREE RADICAL, and on the many,
many Objectivist blogs in cyberspace are pro-US intervention in Iraq. And while
most would probably agree with W that "nuking the entire area" would be a "rash"
action, there are those, like ARI writer Ron Pisaturo, who would use nukes to
conquer the "savages" in the Arab world:
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=1117 .

As for "Ba'athist's
[who] believe that *all* Arabs should form *one* nation and unite under one
leader": This is virtually insignificant, in my view, in terms of the broader
realities in the Middle East. Yes, it is entirely possible that Ba'athists
~talked~ to Al Qaeda interests, but the Ba'athists are still, for the most part,
Pan Arabists, and Pan Arabists have typically ~executed~ the fundamentalists in
their midst (e.g., Qu'tb, and others), while the fundamentalists have viewed the
Pan Arabists, especially the Ba'athists, as "infidels." Again: the Maoist
Chinese and the Soviets both believed in world-wide communist revolution, but
the US was still able to exploit the broad geopolitical differences between
them.

Nobody I know on
the "antiwar" side is denying that Islamic politics and political culture in the
Middle East is ~horrific~. I have ~never~ dropped the context set by the
anti-individualist ethos that informs the fundamentalists in the Middle
East---and I spend quite a bit of time discussing it in my article "Understanding
the Global Crisis: Reclaiming Rand's Radical Legacy." But while
grasping this anti-individualist ethos might be ~necessary~ to an understanding
of the full context before us, it is not ~sufficient~ to explain the hostility
coming from the Islamic world. Japanese culture is not individualist---but the
Japanese aren't flying kamikazes (any more) into US targets.

Much of what has
happened in the Middle East is a direct or indirect result of US government
action. The theocratic Islamicists oppose "capitalism"---but their notion of
capitalism is not the "invisible hand" of Adam Smith; it is the very visible
clenched fist of contemporary neocorporatism. They've seen US "capitalism" at
work, bolstering oppressive regimes---from Saddam to the Shah to the House of
Sa'ud---for the benefit of US companies operating abroad (take a look at the
whole history of US-Saudi-ARAMCO ties and you'll see the perfect embodiment of
what Rand condemned as the "new fascism").

As I said in the
aftermath of September 11, 2001: It is time to put the enemies of freedom--at
home and abroad--on notice. Our choice is not freedom OR security. It is freedom
AND security. That requires the pursuit of a foreign and domestic policy of
principle---one that banishes philosophic pragmatism from the halls of power.
But that won't happen until this entire neocorporatist system is thrown on the
scrap-heap of history.

C says that I've made a string of bold assertions, and I just don't
know enough to declare that Hussein had no WMDs, or a number of little
consequence. All I can say is this: I was actually one of those who ~believed~
the Bush administration's claims that Hussein had WMDs. I doubted that Hussein
was any threat to the US even with such weapons, given the US's overwhelming
firepower as a deterrent response, but I was still willing to concede that
Hussein ~probably~ had something in his arsenal.

Whoever had the burden of proof
~prior~ to the US invasion of Iraq---in terms of proving Hussein's possession of
said weapons---it is clear that at ~this~ point, the burden of proof is on the
US to provide evidence of said possession. The burden is on those who assert the
positive. All these months of looking has uncovered ~nothing~... ABSOLUTELY
NOTHING... of any significance. The Niger nuclear story was a farce, a
fabrication, or worse; the chemical and biological agents and mobile
laboratories are nowhere to be found. If the US was concerned about dispersal of
weapons to terrorist groups, the invasion and the chaos it created ~could~ have
led to the very dispersal it feared. But the fact is, the US practically walked
into Baghdad. No WMDs were used against US troops, and no WMDs have been used
against US troops even during the occupation (an occupation, btw, that has no
end in sight, and that, the army reports today, will require at least 100,000
troops through 2006). So, where are they? If the threat to US security was so
imminent, where in God's name are the WMDs?

And if nobody is in a position to
draw "absolute conclusions" about this, why on earth did the United States go to
war? We were sold a bill of goods: that Hussein had WMDs, and that the US needed
to make a preemptive strike to get rid of them---and him. We were told that
"regime change" was necessary not only to get rid of these weapons, but also to
keep them out of the hands of terrorists---and the Bush administration did
nothing to dissuade Americans from believing that Hussein had ties to such
terrorists, including the Al Qaeda gang responsible for 9/11. We were also told
by our latter-day neoconservative Wilsonian internationalists that democratic
"nation-building" was essential to the future stability and peace in the Middle
East.

When the US government lied its way
into Vietnam, people accused the Johnson administration of suffering from a
"credibility gap." We are now experiencing a credibility ~chasm~. If being
appalled by the lies, distortions, and unrealizable plans for democratic
nation-building in Iraq---a country that has no history of democracy and that
does not even constitute a single nation---makes me a "bitter, cynical, crass,
and overly simplistic pink-o commie peacenik," then visitors will have no
trouble finding my home in Brooklyn. It will be the one with the Hammer and
Sickle flying overhead.

Oh, and as for any ties between Bin
Laden and Bush, as L suggests: The incestuous ties between the US government,
corporate business interests, and foreign, autocratic despots---in Iran, Iraq,
Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and so on, and so on, and so on---have contributed to
the very context that has given birth to anti-American terrorism. None other
than that "bitter, cynical, crass, and overly simplistic pink-o commie
peacenik," Ayn Rand, provided us with a remarkable framework for understanding
the systemic nature of these incestuous ties, as they have developed over the
last century of US history. We ignore that framework and these ties at our
peril.

Just because there may have been
talks between the Ba'ath Party interests and Al Qaeda does not mean that there
was a formal alliance between these parties. During the Cold War, the Soviets
talked to the Red Chinese all the time, but US foreign policy makers ~knew~ that
there were profound conflicts between Soviet and Sino interests... so much so
that the US was able to play off those conflicts considerably. Communism was not
a monolith---and neither is Islam. And don't tell me that Saddam Hussein was
more lethal to US security than Stalin, Khruschev, Brezhnev, or Mao.

Saddam Hussein was not an imminent
threat to the security of the United States. Period. He had no "weapons of mass
destruction," no nuclear capability, and probably no or very little chemical or
biological stock: surely nothing that laced SCUDs sitting on launch-pads.
Moreover, he had no formal ties to Al Qaeda. He was being fully contained
without US invasion.

That invasion has now created a
monumental US welfare state halfway across the globe that will continue to
transfer the wealth of US taxpayers to Bechtel, Halliburton, and all the other
politically connected corporations reconstructing Iraq. (Where are all those
"oil revenues" that were supposed to pay for this boondoggle?) And the
occupation has now created the very problem it sought to resolve: it has become
a magnet for Al Qaeda and other anti-US terrorist groups who, formerly, did
~not~ have a foothold in Iraq in any substantive way.

The irony of all this is that Saudi
Arabia---the birthplace of Bin Laden, the exporter of radical Wahhabism, and the
home to 15 of the 19 September 11th hijackers---remains untouched, and will
remain untouched throughout this "War on Terrorism." Do you want to know why?
Because the US government and US corporate interests have been sleeping with the
Saudis for 60+ years, and despite the House of Sa'ud's endless violations of
human rights and duplicitous policies bolstering Islamic fundamentalism, they
have the full sanction of the US government.

When are the pro-war voices going to
confront the ~reality~ of this Iraq war, and the ~reality~ of the
neoconservative Wilsonian internationalism, philosophic pragmatism, and
corporate statism that Ayn Rand herself saw at the root of US foreign policy?

And for the record: I am ~for~ the
war against Al Qaeda. I have supported ruthless strikes against Bin Laden's
terror network. But I also believe that US foreign policy planted the seeds for
the rise of this terror threat, and that it is only with a fundamental change in
US foreign and domestic policy that this problem will be addressed, long term.

I'm ~appalled~ at the state of
Objectivist commentary on this subject. I've written a sequel to my "Understanding
the Global Crisis: Reclaiming Rand's Radical Legacy" (that article remains
archived at
). The sequel is called "A Question of Loyalty" and it appears in the current
FREE RADICAL. As soon as the link to the piece becomes available, I'll post it
here.

Pfocuses
on the means by which schools of thought advance: ideas, funding, and positions.
While I'm in agreement that Austrians have the "ideas," I think we need to be
sensitive to the multiple ~practical~ strategies of spreading those ideas---of
which blogging and journal writing are two prime examples. I, myself, have had
mixed feelings toward blogs---which was the reason for entitling my own "blog"
page: "Not a Blog" (as in "To Blog or Not a Blog").
In one sense, it is simply a web-log index of my various posts and articles
throughout cyberspace. But, in another sense, it isn't a formal blog, covering
every thing from last night's dinner to the traffic in my neighborhood, with
invited comments and such. I do contribute to Arthur Silber's "Light
of Reason" blog, and was recently added to the "Liberty
& Power" group blog (scroll down; along with Mises contributor,
Roderick Long), mostly because I
find myself so disturbed over the state of US foreign policy that I can't say
~enough~ about it. I welcome expanding outlets for that expression, and for
engagement with those who both agree and disagree with my assessment.

In more general terms, I think "blogging"
has become a market unto itself, which is profoundly influencing intellectual
affairs. I find writers, talking heads on TV, and syndicated columnists
referring with increasing regularity to material posted by various webloggers---from
Andrew Sullivan to Instapundit. All the more reason for those of us who are so
inspired to infiltrate that market and to present our views in ways that
influence its shape. In any market, there will always be a qualitative
differentiation among the products offered; all the more reason to present those
views in ways that contribute to thoughtful and provocative dialogue.

I have always believed in a
multi-pronged strategy for changing the intellectual culture. That means, among
other things, celebrating the division of labor in the revolution that most of
us seek: it means encouraging alternative "parallel institutions" in the
blogsphere, in scholarly periodicals, and in think tanks, just as it means
penetrating established journals and universities and influencing the
mainstream. I see no reason to create strict distinctions among these tasks.

And, in many ways, my efforts to
bolster Ayn Rand scholarship have followed this "both/and" rather than
"either/or" strategy. I once declared that I would drag Objectivism and
academia, "kicking and screaming, if necessary," into
engagement with one another. I've written for many "Objectivist" and
"neo-Objectivist" periodicals, while simultaneously publishing articles on Rand
in established scholarly encyclopedias, and university press-published books on
Rand---praise be to TD for mentioning the importance
of books.

Moreover, my work as a founding
co-editor of THE JOURNAL OF AYN RAND
STUDIES (JARS) has led to its indexing in over a dozen established
abstracting services across disciplinary boundaries in four short years. For the
progress on this front, take a look
here. Of course, I do recognize the practical
issue of journal ranking that P highlights, which is why I encourage authors
who contribute to JARS, to submit their work to other, "established" journals as
well. And there is no doubt that Rand is, finally, slowly penetrating the
academy. (Take a look hereand here.)

Austrian economics scholarship is in
a better position than Rand scholarship, in many respects, because it has a long
history of development over the last hundred or more years. But if it is to be
something more than a complex footnote in the history of economic thought, then
I can see the need to replicate, as R says, "the success of public choice,"
for while Austrian "journals help the movement," it is necessary "to go beyond
them . . . to gain credibility." Or to ~re-gain~ credibility.

Rather than looking solely to public
choice, however, as an example---and I'm not denying that it's a good
example---I think we can learn a lot by looking to the power of Marxism as a
theoretical paradigm, which permeated and profoundly transformed, in an
interdisciplinary fashion, the entire landscape of intellectual discourse.
Marxism may have been undermined, ultimately, by the failure of
twentieth-century socialism, but its ways of looking at the world have impacted
on everything from political economy to cultural anthropology to sociology to
literary criticism---and those ripple effects continue till this day.

Like Rothbard, I believe that
Austrian theory can contribute fundamentally to a ~radical~ paradigm shift, in
political, economic, and social theory, to transform the intellectual landscape.
Anyone convinced of the power of Austrian ideas, therefore, should welcome the
relentless application of those ideas inside ~and~ outside established
institutions, in ~every~ way, in ~any~ way that is possible to us---from
blogging to Austrian journals to mainstream scholarship.

Of course, there is a key
distinction between Marxists and libertarians. The marriage of ideology and
political action is that much more difficult for those of us who are
libertarians. Rolling back state power is just not as sexy a task as becoming a
court intellectual, as Rothbard once explained. The major difference between the
Marxist and Austrian paradigms is that the Marxists influenced political actors
who attempted to implement socialist ideas at the point of a gun. The reciprocal
effects of political, economic, and cultural interpenetration thereby provided
powerful institutional, dare I say, "hegemonic," means of influencing the global
intellectual environment.

That's why I believe that those of
us who work tirelessly to extend the ideas of the Austrians---and so many on
this list are busting their butts doing so---can never let up in this struggle.

Amen to P's Galaxy Quest maxim:
"Never give up, Never surrender!"

Our "lives, liberties, and sacred
honor" depend on it.

Cheers,

Chris

Update:
Mises List;
Posted: Tue, 18 Nov 2003 19:36:08 -0500

Thanks, L,
for your feedback. A couple of quick points:

1. When I said that Austrian
economics should be "something more than a complex footnote in the history of
economic thought," I really should have put quotes around that phrase. This is
basically the line all of us were fed in mainstream economics classes, wherein
questions about the Austrians were almost always relegated to lectures on the
history of economic thought. Clearly, I ~don't~ believe that Austrian economics
is a footnote. I'm tempted to paraphrase Rand here. In an interview with Tom
Snyder, Snyder said to Rand that a lot of her critics thought she was "daft."
She answered: "They don't think that. They want ~you~ to think that." A similar
situation exists, I suspect, with dismissive critics of the Austrians; the
critics relegate the school to the history of economic thought, because it lets
them off the hook in trying to deal with the substantive arguments offered by
today's Austrian theorists.

2. Speaking of quotes... when I
said: >>Our "lives, liberties, and sacred honor" depend on it<<... obviously, I
was paraphrasing, not quoting, the Declaration of Independence. If it were a
direct quote, "fortunes" should have been used in place of "liberties"... alas,
not many of us qua social scientists have "fortunes" to speak of. :)

Cheers,

Chris

Update:
Mises List;
Posted: Fri, 21 Nov 2003
07:05:36 -0500

I could be wrong, but I don't think
~anything~ that P has said in his posts here has impugned the integrity of any
of the journals in Austrian economics, least of all the one he, himself, edits.
As I've pointed out in a previous post: I am a founding co-editor of THE JOURNAL
OF AYN RAND STUDIES, and I---like P with THE
REVIEW OF AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS---am working very hard to make the journal
"top-notch." That means, partially, playing the game of academic publishing:
getting into as many abstracting and indexing services as possible (this helps
in both getting the word out, and in attracting more contributors---who see that
the journal is being recognized in reputable indices); working with established
scholars to broaden the appeal of the journal, and so forth.

But I still encourage our academic
contributors to submit and publish on Rand in top-notch journals in both the
humanities and the social sciences. And I don't see any of this as mutually
exclusive. There's no reason that we, as scholars, can't do both---especially if
we're looking to penetrate the academy with tenure-track positions and make a
substantial impact there.

Like I've said on numerous
occasions---quoting Mao (sorry): "Let a thousand flowers bloom!" Our own think
tanks, public policy institutions, books, and intellectual journals are fine.
But so are established top-tier journals, universities, and university presses.
It's all good. I agree 1000% with P when he says: "We should let all the
alternative strategies be pursued in their different walks."

So, when P is urging his students to
get published in top-notch journals, I am pretty sure, L, that he's ~not~
seeking to undermine the quality of RAE. He's doing a lot of work to advance
Austrian economics in so many significant ways. And I don't think there is any
contradiction between that task, and also advancing one's own work and the work
of others in all those established journals. Yes, 1, 2, or 3 articles might get
rejected, but at some point, something might be accepted. And it's not as if we
write only 1, 2, or 3 articles in our lifetimes.

M.H. asked
about a "list of articles in journals." I think you can turn up quite a few
articles that have "Rand, Ayn" as a keyword by doing a ProQuest search.

I can tell you that I authored an
article on Rand scholarship for PHILOSOPHICAL BOOKS (put out by Blackwell).

And there are quite a few other
journals in which Rand has been discussed: REVIEW OF METAPHYSICS, THE MONIST (a
special issue on teleology, which included essays by Rasmussen, Binswanger, and
others), THE PERSONALIST, SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY AND POLICY, CATHOLIC WORLD, AMERICAN
JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY, GERMANO-SALAVICA: CANADIAN JOURNAL OF
GERMANIC AND SLAVIC COMPARATIVE AND INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES, COLLEGE ENGLISH,
UNIVERSITY OF WINDSOR REVIEW, JOURNAL OF CONSULTING AND CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY,
PSYCHOTHERAPY: THEORY, RESEARCH, AND PRACTICE, IMPACT OF SCIENCE ON SOCIETY,
JOURNAL OF POPULAR CULTURE, CYCNOS, ARISTOS, HARVARD JOURNAL OF LAW & PUBLIC
POLICY, THE OCCASIONAL REVIEW, REASON PAPERS, CRITICAL REVIEW, JOURNAL OF
LIBERTARIAN STUDIES, THE HUMANIST, COMMENTARY, NOMOS, ENGLISH JOURNAL, JOURNAL
OF THOUGHT, JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHICAL RESEARCH, NEW UNIVERSITY THOUGHT, JOURNAL
OF BUSINESS ETHICS, LIBRARY JOURNAL, CHOICE, JOURNAL OF CANADIAN STUDIES, SOCIAL
JUSTICE REVIEW, TEACHING PHILOSOPHY, RESOURCES FOR AMERICAN LITERARY STUDY,
POLICY REVIEW, and many others.

Encyclopedia articles on Rand can be
found in ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY, ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ETHICS, ENCYCLOPEDIA OF
LIBERTARIANISM, ENCYCLOPEDIA OF NEW YORK STATE, AMERICAN AUTHORS AND BOOKS,
AMERICAN NOVELISTS OF TODAY, ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WORLD LITERATURE, CONTEMPORARY
AUTHORS, CONTEMPORARY LITERARY CRITICISM, CONTEMPORARY NOVELISTS, A HANDBOOK OF
AMERICAN LITERATURE, CONTEMPORARY WOMEN PHILOSOPHERS, OXFORD COMPANION TO
AMERICAN LITERATURE, READER'S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LITERATURE, TWENTIETH
CENTURY AUTHORS, and so many others.

A lot of this information is
available in Mimi Gladstein's superb NEW AYN RAND COMPANION, which also includes
a list of university and doctoral studies of Rand (across many disciplines,
including philosophy).

>>
Quite literally no one who seriously studies philosophy anywhere considers Ayn
Rand a philosopher. Hunt through the index of any philosophy book or journal you
like, and you won't find her name cited; look through the philosophy section af
any library, and you won't find books on her. Look through the course syllabi
for any philosophy department you want and you won't find them reading anything
she wrote.<<

Nonsense. That reality is changing
rapidly.

There are, however, two issues here:
1) Are we talking about specifically ~Objectivist~ professors (which is,
decidedly, a small population); or 2) Are we talking about ~attention~ being
paid to Rand in the academy (which seems to be the subject of the above quote)?

With regard to (2),
humanities/social science professors who are paying attention to Ayn Rand, the
list is ever-growing (many of these people have been ~academic~ contributors to,
or the subject of discussion in, THE JOURNAL OF AYN RAND STUDIES):

(I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot of
people; take a look at both the ARI and TOC scholars' directories for additional
professors who are bringing Rand to their classrooms, or addressing her in their
scholarly articles.)

Discussions of Rand can be found in
a variety of textbooks on philosophy (e.g., James Rachels' texts), political
science (e.g., Ken Hoover's texts), and economics, and also in many
encyclopedias, including the Routledge ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY, the Routledge
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ETHICS, Scribner's
AMERICAN WRITERS, and so forth. Some of the progress
in Rand studies was noted by this 1999 CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION article:
http://chronicle.com/colloquy/99/rand/background.htm

And if I'm to go by the mere volume
of material being submitted to THE JOURNAL OF AYN RAND STUDIES, of which I am a
founding co-editor, as well as the journal's progress over the past four years
(see
here), I can tell you that Rand studies are alive, well, and growing. (My own
AYN RAND: THE RUSSIAN RADICAL, which reaches out
to a scholarly audience, is now in its seventh printing; my co-edited anthology,
with Mimi Gladstein, FEMINIST INTERPRETATIONS OF AYN
RAND, is part of the "Re-reading the Canon" series, in which the Rand volume
sits alongside nearly two dozen other volumes devoted to philosophers such as
Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Nietzsche, Hegel, and so forth:
http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sciabarra/fem/femrrc.htm ).

We are just at the beginning of
scholarly attention being paid to Rand---and I expect that attention to grow
exponentially in the coming years.

As part of an
ongoing dialogue on the subject on the Objectivist Outcasts List, Sciabarra
replies:

R writes: Chris,
I will put Aristotle on my reading list. But the impression I get is -- that
after reading Aristotle you then make interpretation of the definitions of the
Laws of Logic that are NOT there to someone who has not read Aristotle. So, a
person NOT working from Aristotle, and just going by the Laws as they have been
defined, would be going about things differently to you. (My impression on this
matter, I will check after reading Aristotle.)

Actually, this is a very ~fair~
comment---as interpretations will differ from writer to writer. And my own
interpretation is certainly not the ~only~ interpretation available. My chapter
on Aristotle in TOTAL FREEDOM weighs the various
claims in the secondary literature, and finds support for its arguments in the
works of both Aristotle and, in my opinion, his ~best~ interpreters. There are a
few interpreters, however, who disagree, and who, in my opinion, do great damage
to his legacy.

Part of the difficulty of dealing
with the history of ideas is that there is always a need to tear away the skins
of interpretive distortion that are usually piled on any given thinker. It's
kind of like a restoration art project: restoration technicians who view an old
Renaissance painting, for example, may suddenly discover that a later generation
of painters had added several coats of paint to the original canvas. Or
sometimes, just through the aging process, the grime and soot that accumulate
distort the images that were left to us by the original artist.

It took restoration experts totally
by surprise when they pulled off all that grime from the Sistine Chapel, only to
discover Michelangelo's use of brilliant and vivid colors. My suggestion here is
that once you tear away all the distortions---the grime and soot---that have
been piled on to Aristotle's canvas, you start to see just how ~brilliant~ he
was: not just for his time, but for ~any~ time.

I posted this to another discussion
board, and thought members here would find it of interest. To set the context, a
participant to the other discussion was suggesting that Zen and Aristotle are in
conflict over the law of excluded middle. The participant said that a person
could be ~both~ rich ~and~ poor, and that this is why Zen entails a
"non-Aristotelian logic." Having discussed this in TOTAL FREEDOM: TOWARD A
DIALECTICAL LIBERTARIANISM, I wrote the following:

===

I do want to emphasize . . . that I
don't think this is an issue of endorsing contradictions. "Rich" and "poor" are
relative terms, and a person can be "rich" in wealth, or "rich" in friends, or
"rich" in health, or "rich" in the ownership of 12" vinyl records, ~relative~ to
others across these comparative dimensions. They can be "rich" in one domain,
and "poor" in another, or "rich" ~relative~ to person A, but "poor" relative to
person B.

The law of noncontradiction, again,
is not just "a thing cannot both be and not be so"... it is: "a thing cannot be
both A and non-A AT THE SAME TIME AND IN THE SAME RESPECT." The moment you
switch the time frame, or the respect (e.g., perspective), all bets are off.

I like to think of the law of
noncontradiction as being sensitive to context---sensitive to switches in tense
(time) and sense (respect).

I should also add that, like the Zen
storytellers, Aristotle himself discusses contraries extensively in his work; he
focuses on many relational oppositions, such as that between "master" and
"slave" (in that each depends on the other for its meaning) and calls such
opposites "correlatives," because neither can be isolated from the other without
losing the meaning of each.

For a very interesting work on the
parallels between Aristotle and Zen, see Stephen R. L. Clark's ARISTOTLE'S MAN:
SPECULATIONS UPON ARISTOTELIAN ANTHROPOLOGY (Oxford, 1975). Clark places
Aristotle in a "Chinese setting" and treats him as "something like a Mahayana
Buddhist" for his remarkable grasp of "yin-and-yang" analysis, and reciprocal
relations in contrariety.

(SOLO
Forum; a shortened version of this also appears on
SOLO HQ. Posted: Wed, 09 Jul 2003 08:58:06 -0400)

My God! I stay away for one day from
reading SOLO-forum and SOLO-HQ, and look what happens! People endorsing
antitrust and PUBLIC EDUCATION!!! What's next???? Public roads? Post offices?

That's okay... I still love you
guys. :)

Seriously... a couple of very brief
comments:

1. On monopoly: Take a look
especially at discussions of monopoly in CAPITALISM: THE UNKNOWN IDEAL, George
Reisman's CAPITALISM, and Murray Rothbard's MAN, ECONOMY, AND STATE, and POWER
AND MARKET. Each of these argue---correctly---that monopoly is, in essence, a
grant of privilege by the government that seeks to limit or prohibit market
entry. Such a destruction of competition is possible ~only~ by government
action. And, historically, it is ~business~ that has embraced the power of
government to create monopoly: whether by enforced cartel agreements, wage and
price controls, subsidies, land grants, tariffs, the use of antitrust laws to
crush competitors, and so forth. (And let's not forget that the biggest example
of such a monopoly is the ~money~ monopoly, which generates inflation and
depression, and is created and sustained by government central banking---the
biggest source of system-wide poverty and privilege the world over.)

2. On public education: Excellent
comments made by Barry Kayton. I should only add these suggestions for further
reading: The sections in CAPITALISM: THE UNKNOWN IDEAL that deal with public
education; Murray Rothbard's FOR A NEW LIBERTY and his EDUCATION: FREE AND
COMPULSORY; the anthology THE TWELVE YEAR SENTENCE: RADICAL VIEWS OF COMPULSORY
SCHOOLING, edited by William F. Rickenbacker; and the anthology EDUCATION IN A
FREE SOCIETY, edited by Anne Husted Burleigh. The government's attempts to
destroy non-public educational alternatives is no different than the government
grants of monopoly to businesses. In this instance, it grabs its own monopoly,
and, historically, it dictates curricula and the inculcation of "civic
virtue"---which is merely a euphemism for social conformity. Its long-term
embrace of "Progressive" methods of education are roundly criticized by Ayn Rand
in her superb essay, "The Comprachicos" in THE NEW LEFT: THE ANTI-INDUSTRIAL
REVOLUTION.

What must be emphasized here is that
all of this is part of one interconnected ~context~ (can you say
"dialectics"???): government monopoly of education, advancing government control
of domestic and global political economy, the inculcation of conformity, and the
undermining of independent thinking. Each of these factors reciprocally
reinforces the other. Indeed, they are mutual requisites for the success of
statism. Statism requires a docile population, and there is no better way to
disarm a populace than by miseducating its children. And I can think of no
greater crime committed against the ~poor~ who are ~sentenced~ to this kind of
"education" because they can't afford to take their educational business
elsewhere. (I speak from inside knowledge as much as I do from observation; my
sister has been a public school educator her whole life---and what she has seen
over the last 30 years is enough to boggle anyone's mind.)

Now, granted, there was a time when
public education was a lot better than it is now. But that's only because there
was a time when ~culture~ was a lot better than it is now. That's why this
battle is as much cultural, as it is personal and political. All the more reason
to end government control of education and of the economy, and to fight for the
transformation of the culture.

Malcolm X once said: "If you are not
part of the solution, you are part of the problem." The ~problem~ with statism
is that it makes all of us "part of the problem"---because we are ~embedded~ in
this system. We go to government schools, we drive on government roads, we mail
our letters through government post offices, we are alternately benefiting from
some government privilege or being hurt by some government prohibition or
exclusion, we pay government taxes, we die in government wars (not all of which
are "defensive"---but that's another issue for another day). Being part of the
solution requires change, therefore, on ~every~ level.

The famous Beatles song goes: "You
say you want a revolution. Well, you know, we all want to change the world . . .
But when you talk about destruction, don't you know that you can count me out?"

Fortunately, for the advocates of
freedom, change is not about nihilistic destruction. It is about ~creation~: the
creation of alternative voluntary institutions that supplant the old coercive
ones. When the very first institution that children encounter is a compulsory
one, teaching them to destroy the efficacy of their own minds, it is no wonder
that the rest of the society accepts compulsion and coercion as an appropriate
social relation.

I've been saying it for a long
time... and I'll say it again---because it seems to get lost in the translation:
Objectivists are ~radicals~ --- and the system, from top to bottom, requires a
radical ~revolution~.

Swrote:
"I'm very interested in studying Rand's literature further, especially in the
context of classic Russian literature. _We The Living_ is a bit more
traditionally Russian than her other novels, I think. One of the things I find
interesting is that Rand once explained that Kira must die in order to support
her theme that Communism was an inescapable bloodbath, yet part of her sharp
condemnation of Tolstoy in _Romantic Manifesto_ is Anna Karenina's suicide,
which I believe occurs for similar reasons. I'm rereading both novels with an
eye towards comparison now. It also seems to me that there is a distinction
between her first two novels and her second two, in terms of characterization
and style, which would be interesting to look at."

I think you've hit on something very
important in Rand, S. Let me offer a few suggestions for further reading.

First, let me (obviously) recommend
my own book, AYN RAND: THE RUSSIAN RADICAL. In one of its aspects, the book
examines the Russian Silver Age and its impact on Rand's early intellectual
development. This includes not only the philosophic revolt against dualism, but
also the Nietzschean literary currents of the day, which greatly influenced the
Russian Symbolist writers, some of whom Rand read. (In fact, she names Aleksandr
Blok, a key Russian Symbolist poet, as her favorite poet.)

Other material has come out since
1995, detailing the parallels between Rand and various Russian writers. Some of
these have been published in THE JOURNAL
OF AYN RAND STUDIES (JARS), of which I am a founding co-editor:

In the Spring 2003 issue: Peter
Saint-Andre's "Zamyatin and Rand"; Jane Yoder's "The
Silence of Synthesis"

. . .

I should also mention that there is
a book forthcoming with critical essays on WE THE LIVING, and you'll also find
some interesting commentary in Valerie Loiret-Prunet's essay "Ayn Rand and
Feminist Synthesis: Rereading WE THE LIVING," published in
FEMINIST INTERPRETATIONS OF AYN RAND (Penn State
Press, edited by Mimi Reisel Gladstein and me).

(Objectivist
Outcasts, excerpts from several posts dated between Tue, 1 Jul 2003 and Fri, 4
Jul 2003, under the thread "Re: Aristotle." The first posts of this series
appear here,
here, and
here.)

[Tue, 01
Jul 2003 23:02:44 -0400]

Just a few brief points in response.
First, thanks to R, S, and E for some very nice discussion. I'm especially happy
that E notes the "golden-mean" parallel to my own emphasis on dialectical
method.

R, I honestly don't disagree with
you about some of the things that Aristotle did wrong in physics. My whole point
is that we have to look at the big picture. Plenty of philosophers---even the
masters of ancient Greece---were not consistent in applying their overall
counsel to every area of knowledge. And fortunately, knowledge didn't ~die~ in
ancient Greece.

As for the area of cosmology: You
are right that few scientists would universalize cosmology as a metaphysics of
explanation. I wish I could say the same thing about philosophers, however. The
so-called "guardians" of knowledge have failed miserably through the centuries
precisely on this point, and I discuss it in TOTAL
FREEDOM. (I don't want to become a parody of myself in terms of
self-citation, but it's just very hard to convey the complexity of these issues
in short off-the-cuff posts when you've written books---indeed, a trilogy of
books---on some of the subject matter at hand. :) )

R writes: "The way I would look at
it is Contextualism is describing a situation relative to some context, and note
the word 'relative' --- which makes Contextualism is close to being another way
of talking about Relativism." Except as I said, relativism usually ~reifies~ a
relative context ~as if~ it were the whole.

The Marxists have a word for this:
"ideology." It is when a part or a particular perspective is represented as if
it were the ~only~ perspective on a topic. The perspective is universalized.
Contextualism, by contrast, counsels us to keep shifting perspective in
analysis, and to piece together a comprehensive picture of the whole through
perspectival shifts.

R writes: "Aristotle did his
demonstrations the wrong way round. One starts from Pythagorean commitment and
then makes the demonstration. Aristotle ignored Pythagorean commitment and went
straight ahead to a fallacious demonstration."

But that depends what we're talking
about; he wasn't completely consistent, but there are plenty of areas, namely
his biology, and in his overall stress upon reason, logic, and dialectical point
of view---which are foundational to ~any~ scientific inquiry.

[Thu, 03
Jul 2003 18:46:41 -0400]

Just a very brief reply (excuse my
brevity, but I'm on deadline for quite a few articles currently).

1. It's interesting that R suggests
that contextualism, as I've described it, is "relativity." It's interesting
because he posits a conflict between Einstein and Aristotle, but on this, it
seems, they are actual more "in sync" than out of sync. Except, of course,
Einstein, obviously, moved far beyond Aristotle in the application of such
principles.

2. R quotes Einstein. I don't think
Aristotle ever claimed that science grows out of empiricism alone, though I do
believe that the scientific imagination is something that has advanced
dramatically since the ancients. In all honesty, I think it's actually a bit
anachronistic to apply the "a priori-a posteriori" distinction to Aristotle. He
had what is called an "ontological" view of logic itself; in other words, the
laws of logic were both laws of being and laws of thought. I think Aristotle
would have recognized that logic and experience could not be sundered in the
scientific enterprise. One could fault him as to how ~well~ he practiced it in
~every~ discipline; but I don't think one can fault his overall foundation to
human knowledge. Logic, quite simply, is the foundation for ~all~ human
knowledge. Without a commitment to the laws of noncontradiction, excluded
middle, and identity (all of which were implied in Aristotle's initial
formulation of the first), nothing is possible. This was an enormously important
intellectual articulation that nobody ever fully grasped prior to Aristotle.
Plato comes close, but it is Aristotle who becomes the father of logic, the
father of investigation, the father of dialectics. Fathers sometimes get lots of
things wrong. That's why they leave it to their sons and daughters to get it
right. My only point here is that all of us stand upon the shoulders of giants.
The giants are not infallible, but we see further only because we're on their
shoulders.

3. S writes: "Thanks for your
information. This helps to clarify some points for me and to also fortify my
defense for one of my personal stances. As I have noted previously, I strongly
believe that no one person or philosophy has all the answers. It is important to
examine a variety of perspectives and theories, even if we ultimately reject
them. Therefore not only will we be able to defend those theories we support,
but also those we do not. For example, I've noted in reading non-fiction works
by Ayn Rand that she has a particular distaste for Kant. I've read comments by
other writers who hail him as "one of the most important philosophers of his
time". Who am I to believe? I thought it best to examine his theories myself and
thereby be able to make my own judgements on them."

Absolutely: and if you ever use one
person's pronouncements as an excuse ~not~ to read the original source, you
thereby close the door to the judgment of your own mind. I can think of nothing
that flies in the face of "Objectivism" more than to abandon the objectivity of
your own judgment. For example, my own work in the history of philosophy
re-examines thinkers such as Hegel and Marx; because I came to my own
independent verdict on such thinkers, daring to suggest that we could learn
something from them (note: that does not mean "agreement with" in overall
viewpoint), a number of Objectivists have gone so far as to call me a "Hegelian"
and a "Marxist." But if questioning what you've been taught qualifies you as an
"Objectivist Outcast," make the most of it!

Thanks, too, S, for this comment: "A
personal note Chris...I think it is admirable that you have published a trilogy
of books, particularly on such a demanding topic. Kudos to you!" The topic is
actually the history of dialectical inquiry. I argue for a dialectical defense
of human freedom---very different from the Marxist stuff to which "dialectics"
has normally been associated.

[Fri, 04
Jul 2003 08:24:49 -0400]

Thanks for your reply, R. I wanted
to say a couple of things in response:

You wrote: >>If Aristotle was
advocating "contextualism" and we notice its similarly to relativity (under
Galileo ), then its a mystery to me why Aristotle thought that the Earth was the
centre of the universe, he should have realised the Copernican perspective was
possible. Aristotle must have been flawed in his thinking and could not follow
through the proper reasoning from his starting point ---- The main conflict
between Aristotle and Galileo, was that Galileo had Pythagorean commitment and
Aristotle did not. So, they were in "sync" for a while, then Aristotle went
wrong.<<

But R, again, you're making my
point. Nobody is perfect. Sometimes people have good overall premises, and they
still go about solving problems incorrectly. That doesn't invalidate what good
they've done. You are, of course, right that "Some ancients had great
imaginations," but not all ancients did, and nobody knows ~everything~. And even
if Aristotle is "an example of a father who got things wrong," there is ~nothing~
in "the logic he created [that] is flawed." If there is something wrong with the
law of non-contradiction, please do enlighten me. I don't mean that in any
sarcastic way---I just fail to see how this principle is ~ever~ incorrect.
(Unless you mean "the 'logic' of some of his scientific argumentation...")

Finally, as to the metaphor of
standing on the shoulders of giants, R says: "What if
some giants fall down an abyss ( I am proposing Aristotle as such a giant),
those who then try to stand on such a giant also end up down the abyss. A person
standing on the shoulders of such a giant down the abyss is not seeing any
further."

~Every~ thinker who has ever existed
must be analyzed with a scalpel, not a sledgehammer. That means dissecting what
is right from what is wrong, and getting beyond the errors. The shoulders we
stand on are the shoulders of those who get things ~right~. But since everyone
is a mixed case, we need to stand on the "right" shoulder. I maintain that we
see further ~because~ we stand on Aristotle's shoulders (to the extent that he
got things right). And because our knowledge advances, we also get to see where
he got things wrong. I fully recognize Aristotle's flaws, and I think the Age of
Science gave him a good whipping on where he got things wrong. That doesn't mean
it invalidated where he got things right, and to the extent that he did provide
the very logical and dialectical foundation for the advancement of knowledge,
his place in the pantheon of scientific achievement is unimpeachable.

And he had enormous achievements in
many other areas as well---not the least of which were many of his ethical and
political insights that influenced John Locke and the American founders, and
that paved the way for the birth of America, which we celebrate today. He had an
extraordinary intellect, writing on everything from metaphysics to politics to
poetics. And when you consider that the bulk of his actual writings have yet to
be found (they were probably destroyed forever), the writings that are extant
constitute a truly remarkable contribution to human knowledge. Whatever his
flaws.

Georges wrote: "I will try to locate
a copy. I am currently reading his [Peikoff's] OBJECTIVISM: THE PHILOSOPHY OF
AYN RAND. A friend has also recommended Chris Sciabarra's AYN RAND: THE RUSSIAN
RADICAL. Does anyone on Atlantis recommend that work?"

Well, as the author of the book in
question, I sure can recommend it. :) I should warn you, Georges, however, that
the book does raise a lot of historical and methodological questions, and it has
sparked debates on everything from Rand's early intellectual development to the
meaning of dialectical method. There are endorsements, reviews, and critical
discussions about the book featured on the RUSSIAN RADICAL site, which you may
find of interest. Check out:
http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sciabarra/randstar.htm

While the book is controversial in
some respects, I think I can also say that the book itself is based on an
extraordinary diversity of research sources, making use not only of virtually
everything ever written by Rand and about Rand, but also virtually every tape
and lecture and interview available (up to 1995) that is part of the vast "oral
tradition" of Objectivist philosophy. It also re-integrates, into the larger
discussion of Objectivism, much of Nathaniel Branden's work, especially those
essays written during his association with Ayn Rand, and some of his post-Randian
work as well. (You will be hard pressed to find ~any~ discussions of Branden's
essays on psycho-epistemology, volition, alienation, etc., in any writings by
Peikoff or others associated with the Ayn Rand Institute.)

The one virtue to reading the book:
Feel free to write me privately, if you have any questions. :)